The Maleficent Seven

“Which means that we need to have something that each one of them wants.”

“And what do you think I’ve been doing these past few weeks? I’ve been collecting our incentives. Really, Billy-Ray, you’re just going to have to accept that I do know exactly what I’m doing.”

He laughed. “Oh I believe you, darlin’. You’ve been proving yourself to be quite the cunning little minx lately.” He shrugged. “I’m behind you all the way, and you know it. So Springheeled Jack is the first team member to be recruited, is he?”

“No, actually. We’re going to talk to an old friend of his first. Old friend of yours, too.”

Sanguine’s grin soured. “Aw, hell. Not him. You know he creeps me out.”

“Dusk is a harmless little puppy once you get to know him.”

“Dusk is a vampire. There ain’t nothing harmless, little or puppyish about him.”

Now it was Tanith’s turn to shrug. “Then he’ll be our rabid, bloodthirsty attack dog instead. Either way, he’s getting a cuddle. Does someone else want a cuddle? Someone who is in this room with me right now?”

“I hope you don’t think you can sway me from every argument with the promise of a cuddle.”

Tanith put on a sad face, and turned back to the window. “Shame,” she said.

A moment later she felt Sanguine’s arms wrap round her. “Just this once,” he said, and she laughed.

The vampires stood looking at the bones of the dinosaur and Dusk wondered what it would have been like to kill such a magnificent beast. Certainly it would have been more of a challenge than that posed by the mortals. He watched them hurry from exhibit to exhibit, either chasing after their squealing young or dragging them along behind, every sound they made amplified by the museum’s cavernous halls.

“The boy?” asked Isara.

“Dead,” said Dusk. “A year ago.”

Isara nodded. Apart from that, she didn’t move. No words slipped by her lips. No emotions slipped on to her face. Even her eyes were calm. But Dusk knew that inside her, twisting within her, were feelings alien to him. Love and loss and sorrow. The only feeling he could recognise was anger. And she had that, too.

“Did you kill him?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

The ghost of a smile. “Of course not,” she echoed. “You would not break the code, not even to punish one who had. How, then, did he die?”

“He had developed another unhealthy attachment to a girl,” said Dusk, “but this one proved too much for him. She drowned him in salt water.”

“Her name?”

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose not. The boy is dead, that’s all I really care about. In its way, justice has been served. You must feel some satisfaction also.”

He looked at her. “Must I?”

“Hrishi was your only friend in the world,” said Isara, “and when you involved him in business that was not his own, the boy broke the code and took his head. Surely you feel some sense of responsibility for what happened?”

“No,” said Dusk. “Hrishi knew the boy was young and impetuous and violent, and he still let his guard down. Hrishi paid for his foolishness.”

“Be careful how you speak about him,” Isara said, and looked at Dusk with fire and ice in her eyes. “It’s your fault he died. You should have killed the boy when you found him.”

“The code—”

“No one would have known. The boy was a danger to us all. He stalked and he tortured and he murdered every woman he became enamoured with. You should have killed him the instant you realised what he was. Hrishi’s blood is on your hands.”

“Perhaps.”

“Do you even care?”

Dusk didn’t see the point of stirring Isara’s anger any further, so he stayed quiet. After a moment she turned, walked away, left him alone.

He looked at the dinosaur bones for a while longer, and then he too left the museum. The sun was warm on his skin as he walked. He got back to the house and found Tanith Low sitting on the cage in the living room, Billy-Ray Sanguine standing beside her.

“Nice place,” Tanith said. “I have to admit, I didn’t see you as the suburbanite type. I figured you’d be at home in a nice crypt somewhere, surrounded by candles and tapestries. The cage is a nice touch, though. Homey.”

He’d heard what had happened, of course. He’d heard that a Remnant had taken up permanent residence inside Tanith’s mind and body. But that still didn’t mean he liked her.

“We’re here to make you a proposition,” said Sanguine.

“I’m not interested.”

“We’re putting a team together,” said Tanith.

“It’s been tried. It didn’t work.”

“We need your help.”

“You can kill people without me.”

“This isn’t about killing anyone,” Tanith said. “Quite the opposite, in fact. We want to save someone. We want to save Darquesse. A group of Elementals and Adepts has formed, a small team who are working on a way to stop her when she appears. Our aim is to stop them from stopping her.”

“Why would I want to stop that? When she comes, she’ll destroy the world.”

“Not all of it,” said Tanith. “Just the civilised part. And we’re going to help her. Won’t that be wonderful? She’ll kill sorcerers and mortals and burn cities to cinders and sink entire continents into the sea, and you’ll be free to hunt and kill the survivors. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“I don’t care about any of this.”

“We know you don’t,” Sanguine said, and nodded. “We know you’re looking out for number one. And hey, buddy, I get that. I do. But we need you on our side. It’s gonna be you, us, a few others... and Jack.”

“Then I cannot be on your team. The last time I saw Springheeled Jack I was abandoning him to the Sanctuary authorities in Ireland.”

“So you betrayed him,” Tanith said. “So what? A little betrayal never hurt anyone. Listen, I know I can convince Jack to play nice. I have something he wants, after all. Just like I have something you want.”

“And what is that?”

“Dusk, I look at you, and I see a soul without purpose. I mean, here you are, living in a very nice house with a time-locked cage where the couch should be. I don’t know how you came to own this place – I’m sure the story is suitably entertaining – but you don’t belong here. You’ve lost your focus.”

“You think you can provide that focus?” Dusk asked. “I don’t care about Darquesse. I don’t care about anything.”